QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I’m certain there are police officers out there that have worked on cases, who have real doubts about the safety of convictions and have genuinely-held concerns about the way investigations were conducted,” McKinnel says. “And I’ve had a number of off-the-record conversations with people who say helpful things, but aren’t prepared to stand up and risk their reputation and their friendships. At a human level, I understand that, but in respect of our criminal justice system, it’s a problem.”
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PASSAGE ONE OF THE DAY: "McKinnel believes this reluctance of police to speak up about possible corruption and mistakes had much to do with a misplaced sense of loyalty to their colleagues, which was a part of police culture worldwide. And those who did speak out, such as Dave Henwood who claimed in 2012 that Teina Pora was innocent, often had their lives made very difficult by the police, meaning it was even less likely others would break ranks and step forward. “His treatment at the hands of his employer was awful. There was insinuation, there were rumours, there was refusal to give him free access to his own documents – those types of decisions at high levels were, in my view, unnecessary and quite concerning. There’s little doubt that those sorts of pressures coming from senior police officers have a chilling effect.”
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "McKinnel predicts Gail Maney’s case “will one day be regarded as the most grotesque miscarriage of justice New Zealand has seen.” Maney was convicted of murdering Deane Fuller-Sandys and her case is the subject of the award-winning Stuff-RNZ podcast Gone Fishing. The former detective has investigated the case for the last year and says he has “grave concerns about what went on. From my perspective, it’s the scale and the extent of the deception and what is, in my view, four people convicted of a brutal crime that never happened.” McKinnel says whenever such convictions were questioned, there seemed to be an utter reluctance by police to even consider they might have made mistakes or charged the wrong person, until the very last minute “when there’s no room left to wiggle, and then a concession will be made”. He points to how police, for years, across two commissioners, ignored concerns about Teina Pora’s conviction, and only accepted he was innocent, when it was impossible to resist that conclusion any longer. But sometimes that concession was never made, including in one of the country’s most infamous cases, where Arthur Allan Thomas spent nine years in jail for the 1970 murders of Jeannette and Harvey Crewe before being pardoned. Despite this, and the findings of a Royal Commission, it seemed police were still trying to “re-write history and exculpate police who planted evidence,” McKinnel says. What was just as frustrating was that even when police accepted someone had been wrongfully convicted, they almost never reviewed their faulty investigation. In Teina Pora’s case, “as far as I’m aware, there’s not been a single step made by police to see where they went wrong, and what lessons could be learnt. And that’s an extraordinary thing, when somebody goes to prison for 22 years for something they didn’t do. I can’t understand why you don’t want to see where improvements could be made.”
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STORY: "Top investigator urges police to speak up about wrongful convictions," by Mike White, published by North and South on July 18, 2020. (Mike White has been a journalist for 20 years and has reported from many countries, including Afghanistan and Iraq. Since 2003 he has been a staff writer and photographer for North and South.)
PRELUDE: "Why
are police officers so reluctant to speak up about possible mistakes
and share evidence of wrongful convictions? Mike White talks to
investigator Tim McKinnel, who says police often turn a blind eye to
possible corruption out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to colleagues. McKinnel will be speaking at a NOTED Live
panel discussion on crime and famous New Zealand murder cases with
forensic scientist Anna Sandiford and criminal psychologist Devon
Polaschek.
GIST: "Investigator and former cop Tim McKinnel has issued a blunt challenge to his colleagues to speak up about faulty investigations. “Dear
former police detectives,” McKinnel wrote on Twitter, “if you know
about or have evidence of wrongful conviction, it is not traitorous or
treacherous to share that information or evidence. Thank you.” McKinnel, who was instrumental in proving Teina Pora’s innocence
after he’d spent 22 years in prison for raping and murdering Susan
Burdett, is currently investigating the cases of Gail Maney, and Alan
Hall, who were both controversially convicted of murder. “I’m
certain there are police officers out there that have worked on cases,
who have real doubts about the safety of convictions and have
genuinely-held concerns about the way investigations were conducted,”
McKinnel says. “And I’ve had a number of off-the-record
conversations with people who say helpful things, but aren’t prepared to
stand up and risk their reputation and their friendships. At a human
level, I understand that, but in respect of our criminal justice system,
it’s a problem.” McKinnel believes this reluctance of police to
speak up about possible corruption and mistakes had much to do with a
misplaced sense of loyalty to their colleagues, which was a part of
police culture worldwide. And those who did speak out, such as
Dave Henwood who claimed in 2012 that Teina Pora was innocent, often had
their lives made very difficult by the police, meaning it was even less
likely others would break ranks and step forward. “His treatment
at the hands of his employer was awful. There was insinuation, there
were rumours, there was refusal to give him free access to his own
documents – those types of decisions at high levels were, in my view,
unnecessary and quite concerning. There’s little doubt that those sorts
of pressures coming from senior police officers have a chilling effect.” McKinnel
predicts Gail Maney’s case “will one day be regarded as the most
grotesque miscarriage of justice New Zealand has seen.” Maney was
convicted of murdering Deane Fuller-Sandys and her case is the subject
of the award-winning Stuff-RNZ podcast Gone Fishing. The
former detective has investigated the case for the last year and says
he has “grave concerns about what went on. From my perspective, it’s the
scale and the extent of the deception and what is, in my view, four
people convicted of a brutal crime that never happened.” McKinnel
says whenever such convictions were questioned, there seemed to be an
utter reluctance by police to even consider they might have made
mistakes or charged the wrong person, until the very last minute “when
there’s no room left to wiggle, and then a concession will be made”. He
points to how police, for years, across two commissioners, ignored
concerns about Teina Pora’s conviction, and only accepted he was
innocent, when it was impossible to resist that conclusion any longer. But
sometimes that concession was never made, including in one of the
country’s most infamous cases, where Arthur Allan Thomas spent nine
years in jail for the 1970 murders of Jeannette and Harvey Crewe before
being pardoned. Despite this, and the findings of a Royal Commission, it
seemed police were still trying to “re-write history and exculpate
police who planted evidence,” McKinnel says. What was just as
frustrating was that even when police accepted someone had been
wrongfully convicted, they almost never reviewed their faulty
investigation. In Teina Pora’s case, “as far as I’m aware, there’s not
been a single step made by police to see where they went wrong, and what
lessons could be learnt. And that’s an extraordinary thing, when
somebody goes to prison for 22 years for something they didn’t do. I
can’t understand why you don’t want to see where improvements could be
made. The same was the case when accused people were acquitted,
such as Ewen Macdonald who was found not guilty of murdering Scott Guy,
but police have never reviewed their whole investigation.
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.noted.co.nz/currently/currently-crime/tim-mckinnel-investigator-urges-police-to-speak-up-about-wrongful-convictions
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The disturbing experience of former RCMP Const. Dave Moore in Halifax, Canada, in the notorious Glen Assoun case - the subject of numerous posts on this Blog - is relevant to the question posed by Mike White - with one qualification: "Why are police officers so reluctant to speak up about possible mistakes and share evidence of wrongful convictions?"The qualification? Why would a police force risk a wrongful conviction by side-lining an officer who was attempting to pursue evidence pointing to an alternative suspect - a serial killer - and imposing work-related sanctions on him in the process? In short, why would a police force actively engage in engineering a miscarriage of justice. In this case it was Canada's national police force - The RCMP. For background, read Michael Tutton's Canadian Press story, "Assoun murder case: RCMP suppressed, erased evidence of other suspects," published on by CTV Friday July 12, 2019 at the link below.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: (RCMP Cnstbl. Dave Moore): "The preliminary assessment says the RCMP superiors told Moore to stop working on the file, and two of his direct superiors told him to "stop wasting his time." He then brought his findings to the attention of Insp. Leo O'Brien, the head of the ViCLAS unit. The senior officer told Moore it was the Mounties' policy not to disclose information from the analytical system to defence counsel "since all of the information that the analysis was based on was otherwise available from other sources." Green wrote that Moore objected. He was later taken off the ViCLAS unit. His job evaluations went from very positive in 2003, the year of his work on the file, to negative the following year. In his response to his job evaluation, Moore wrote there was "no consideration given to the information or the fact that there was a possibility an innocent man was in prison." He continued that while he recognized there was "sensitivity" from the Halifax police -- who were leading the investigation -- "there was a legal responsibility to bring this information forward."
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GIST: "The RCMP chose not to disclose an investigator's theories about other suspects to a wrongfully convicted Halifax man fighting to prove he was innocent of murder, federal documents revealed on Friday. Not only that, but the Mounties digitally erased or destroyed most of this potential evidence -- including the possibility a serial killer, Michael McGray, was a suspect, says the report. The August 2014 federal report, released Friday by Nova Scotia Supreme Court, was a key to the release on bail of 63-year-old Glen Assoun almost five years ago. By then, Assoun had spent almost 17 years in prison for his 1999 conviction in the killing of Brenda Way -- whose throat was sliced on Nov. 12, 1995, in a Halifax back alley. "There is a host of new information suggesting links between Michael McGray as well as other suspects, and the murder of Brenda Way," Justice Department lawyer Mark Green wrote in the preliminary assessment. He pointed to an analysis done in 2003 by former RCMP Const. Dave Moore using a police database system, referred to as ViCLAS, that led the analyst to believe McGray -- who has been convicted of seven murders -- was a suspect.
Green noted that Assoun's lawyer in his unsuccessful 2006 appeal --
Jerome Kennedy -- had specifically asked for the Crown to disclose this
type of information, but never received it. Moore's analysis also raised the prospect that a violent sexual
offender, Avery Greenough, may have picked up Way in his vehicle on the
night of the murder. "Const. Moore certainly considered both McGray and Greenough as strong
suspects in the Brenda Way murder," wrote Green in his conclusion.
Outside court on Friday, Assoun said the revelations are startling. "It's been 21 years, and it's destroyed my life. The time gone is time I'll never get back ... It affected me and my kids, and I can't get back the time they took from me for something I didn't do." An RCMP news release says the force did an internal investigation and concluded the files were deleted for "quality control purposes," but the actions were "contrary to policy and shouldn't have happened." It says it was done without malicious intent. Green's report was released in its entirety Friday after a provincial supreme court judge ruled in favour of a case launched by The Canadian Press, CBC and The Halifax Examiner. Earlier this year, Justice Minister David Lametti declared there was reasonable basis to believe a miscarriage of justice had occurred and that "reliable and relevant information" was never provided to the defence. Justice James Chipman declared Assoun innocent on March 1 after the Nova Scotia Crown dropped its case. Assoun's lawyers Phil Campbell and Sean MacDonald say with the release of the hundreds of page of documents, the public is finally learning the full reasons behind "a tragic loss to the administration of justice." "Glen's lawyer and the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal were deliberately denied highly probative information, from an objective expert analyst," said Campbell in an email. "If the Court of Appeal had known in 2006 about the profiling of Michael McGray ... it would never have upheld Glen's conviction and life sentence." Assoun remained in custody for eight more years following the denial of his appeal. The preliminary assessment says the RCMP superiors told Moore to stop working on the file, and two of his direct superiors told him to "stop wasting his time." He then brought his findings to the attention of Insp. Leo O'Brien, the head of the ViCLAS unit. The senior officer told Moore it was the Mounties' policy not to disclose information from the analytical system to defence counsel "since all of the information that the analysis was based on was otherwise available from other sources." Green wrote that Moore objected. He was later taken off the ViCLAS unit. His job evaluations went from very positive in 2003, the year of his work on the file, to negative the following year. In his response to his job evaluation, Moore wrote there was "no consideration given to the information or the fact that there was a possibility an innocent man was in prison." He continued that while he recognized there was "sensitivity" from the Halifax police -- who were leading the investigation -- "there was a legal responsibility to bring this information forward."
Outside court on Friday, Assoun said the revelations are startling. "It's been 21 years, and it's destroyed my life. The time gone is time I'll never get back ... It affected me and my kids, and I can't get back the time they took from me for something I didn't do." An RCMP news release says the force did an internal investigation and concluded the files were deleted for "quality control purposes," but the actions were "contrary to policy and shouldn't have happened." It says it was done without malicious intent. Green's report was released in its entirety Friday after a provincial supreme court judge ruled in favour of a case launched by The Canadian Press, CBC and The Halifax Examiner. Earlier this year, Justice Minister David Lametti declared there was reasonable basis to believe a miscarriage of justice had occurred and that "reliable and relevant information" was never provided to the defence. Justice James Chipman declared Assoun innocent on March 1 after the Nova Scotia Crown dropped its case. Assoun's lawyers Phil Campbell and Sean MacDonald say with the release of the hundreds of page of documents, the public is finally learning the full reasons behind "a tragic loss to the administration of justice." "Glen's lawyer and the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal were deliberately denied highly probative information, from an objective expert analyst," said Campbell in an email. "If the Court of Appeal had known in 2006 about the profiling of Michael McGray ... it would never have upheld Glen's conviction and life sentence." Assoun remained in custody for eight more years following the denial of his appeal. The preliminary assessment says the RCMP superiors told Moore to stop working on the file, and two of his direct superiors told him to "stop wasting his time." He then brought his findings to the attention of Insp. Leo O'Brien, the head of the ViCLAS unit. The senior officer told Moore it was the Mounties' policy not to disclose information from the analytical system to defence counsel "since all of the information that the analysis was based on was otherwise available from other sources." Green wrote that Moore objected. He was later taken off the ViCLAS unit. His job evaluations went from very positive in 2003, the year of his work on the file, to negative the following year. In his response to his job evaluation, Moore wrote there was "no consideration given to the information or the fact that there was a possibility an innocent man was in prison." He continued that while he recognized there was "sensitivity" from the Halifax police -- who were leading the investigation -- "there was a legal responsibility to bring this information forward."
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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